Chapter 33 Fae Jail
Fae Jail
Cha blearily swam up from dreams of trying to eat sugary marshmallows and choking on them instead, opening her eyes to what could only be a fae jail cell.
She’d always kind of figured this day would come.
In fact, at one point in her admittedly troubled adolescence, her mother had predicted this very thing.
No one would be surprised to hear she’d come to this.
The Bandit meeting her comeuppance at last.
Still, she’d expected to find herself pacing an Obsidian-black jail cell, not one that looked like the inside of an egg.
With the curved walls descending evenly to a shallow bowl at the bottom, there would be zero despondent pacing.
She wasn’t even sure she could lever herself up from being a puddle on the polished opalescent bowl of a floor.
Also, it leeched some of the drama of her situation that the thing looked like it could be spun of sugar candy instead of bleak as dying coals.
Come to think of it, being despondent worked pretty well lying in a puddle, which seemed to be all her body wanted to do at the moment.
Her ribs ached with a dull throb, regular acute stabs of agony grabbing every time she took a breath.
The rest of her didn’t feel much better.
Had the Sugarplums held a dance party on her unconscious body? Sure felt like it.
Nevertheless, she ignored the seductive lure of lying in a dramatically wilted heap of her own failure and pushed to a sitting position, then to her feet, allowing herself to groan and wheeze all she liked, just so long as she got the job done.
Sure, she had to brace one hand on the curved wall to keep herself vaguely vertical, especially with the curved floor unbalancing her, but it was a start.
The cell looked little different from a standing position, basically a sphere of semi-translucent white with subtle rainbow shimmers. No windows or apparent door. The lack of facilities to relieve herself concerned her greatly. Possibly the fae didn’t realize that human bodies had those needs.
Or they planned to just let her die in here. Cheerful thought.
What had they done with Katu? In general the fae valued the carriage beasts, so hopefully the Moonstone monsters would care for him. He’d be missing her, though, and wondering why she’d abandoned him. The thought made her want to weep and she wasn’t the weeping kind.
More optimistically, she hoped Dy had gotten away clean.
Maybe she and Phin were even now fencing the stolen cargo of Obsidian black dust, along with whatever valuable object Otto had been sending to Moonstone, and planning their retirement.
The thought made her happy enough to momentarily forget how much her current situation sucked.
If she had to sacrifice herself to a lonely death in a fae jail, then that was the best possible reason to do it.
The glow didn’t last long, and neither did her stamina.
Besides, with pacing impossible and standing downright painful, the questionable virtue of being upright quickly faded.
At least the curved wall allowed her to slide down in a glide that was, if not gentle, at least slightly less excruciating than a full drop.
Experimenting, she found the ideal position, an angle that accommodated her long legs while not compressing her aching ribs too much.
Despite her bone-deep exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep.
She was in too much pain and had too much anxiety about her situation.
But there was also nothing to do but think and worry.
All of her bad choices and multitudes of regrets paraded through her mind, jeering at her, taunting her former and now shattered bravado.
And topping the list, the biggest regret of all: losing Azul. Why hadn’t she at least shagged him super fast before nobly letting him go? Responsibility sucked—and if this was the reward for it, then she failed to understand the virtue of it.
Much as she didn’t want to jinx herself by wishing for something to happen—no doubt anyone coming to fetch her would not be invested in making her situation better—she began to long for change. She also really needed to pee.
Cha was no mathematician or scientist, but she began calculating what would happen when she inevitably had to pee in her little egg.
Much better than obsessing about certain tasty blue fae princes.
Would she drown in it before her body ran out of the stuff?
Maybe not if they never gave her any food or water.
Still, soaking in a bath of her own urine was so far from a badass way to go that she deeply regretted that she hadn’t gotten killed in the fight.
But then… why hadn’t they killed her? Seemed like it would’ve been easier than wasting an egg on her.
The shell shivered around her, interrupting the morose thoughts.
The top of the cell went transparent, then vanished entirely.
Cha struggled to her feet, even more difficult this time, as she’d stiffened up during the long sit.
A Sugarplum-type fae peered in at her. “Come out, human,” it said, its fluting voice so alluring that she practically longed to do its bidding, and probably would have even if she wasn’t desperate to escape her cell.
“How?” she asked, hoping her leaning against the wall looked saucy and cynical, rather than a desperately needed surface to prop herself against.
The Sugarplum simply reached in, fisted a hand in her jacket, and lifted her like a kitten by the scruff of her neck.
Just delightful. Fortunately, it plopped her down before she gave into instinct and struggled like a frantic kitten with no claws.
She managed to stay on her feet, just barely, and produced a sneer for her jailer.
The man wouldn’t keep her down, even if the man was some gender-indeterminate, Moonstone fae.
They seemed to be on a walkway that surfed along in a sea of shimmering white egg-shapes.
How unsettling. Was Monat in here somewhere?
Cha had no idea how she’d find out or begin searching, but she had promised Dy, and that could be something fruitful from this shit situation.
So, this was actually semi-close to the original plan, with a few setbacks.
If you counted Cha being also trapped in fae jail and probably dead soon as a “setback.”
“I’m free to go then,” she suggested to the Sugarplum. Couldn’t hurt to try.
The Sugarplum sneered mightily, doing a much better job than Cha had. “You now face interrogation and trial,” it said. “I seriously doubt the verdict will include freedom.”
“I have some lovely shinies you might care to look over,” Cha said, wondering if she did still have them. The chest of Phinny’s gems was in Katu still, wherever her baby cat had ended up.
The Sugarplum didn’t even pause to consider that half-baked bribe. “Come with me.”
“I need to pee first,” Cha said, not budging.
Can a sneer deepen? If so, that’s what happened. “Humans are disgusting.”
“Yeah, basically sacks of shit and pee,” Cha agreed amiably. “Good reason not to keep us around. I’ll just be on my way then.”
The Sugarplum—probably not her personal Sugarplum anymore, she was pretty sure, but it wasn’t like they wore nametags—seized her again by the back of her jacket and perp-walked her along at a truly uncomfortable pace for her traumatized body.
Happily enough, however, they ended at a toilet facility that seemed to be designed for humans.
Once Cha got over the relief of being alone inside, relieving herself, she received the extra delight of finding a shower within and various grooming supplies.
Bathing and removing the various goops out of her hair absorbed all of her attention at first. Finally clean and dressed again, she felt considerably less miserable.
Surveying herself in the mirror, she found she looked, if not her best, at least reasonably put together.
Then she met her own dark, snapping gaze in the mirror and asked, “Is it at all weird that they have a facility designed for humans here? Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. ”
Something caught her eye in the corner of the mirror, a bit of dark metal and, saliently, not any shade of white.
Cha pried it out from behind the pearlescent glass, the steel ring falling into her palm.
The smooth metal circle was tipped with grinning skulls.
Monat’s nose ring. Monat had been here. And she’d clearly removed the nose ring, screwing the skull head back on, before leaving it deliberately behind.
Cha’s spirits, already abysmal, cratered further.
Though she’d locked the door, the Sugarplum opened it. “Come, human.”
“The name is Arantxa Evermore,” she replied jauntily, pocketing the nose ring, “though everyone calls me Cha.”
The Sugarplum simply reached in and dragged her out.
She was getting more than a little tired of that.
The restroom had been as windowless as the rest of the place.
Even if they hadn’t disappeared her sword and magic wand—worthless piece of crap that had turned out to be—she didn’t really have much in the way of options for escape.
Without Katu, she could hardly get anywhere in Moonstone, even if she could figure out which way to go.
Hitchhiking along the Moonstone Throughway would be a real treat.
She snorted at the image and the Sugarplum smacked the back of her head with an extra appendage. “No laughing,” it said.
“Man, fairyland sucks,” she whined, earning another smack. Oddly it made her feel better.
*